Tim Lebbon - Reaper's Legacy

Beside the tumbled wreck of the London Eye, on the banks of a River Thames clogged with refuse, the rubble of bombed buildings, and an occasional floating body, Lucy-Anne sees a woman waiting for her. The woman is dressed in normal clothing, yet possesses an ethereal quality that makes her shine. Her hair dances to an absent breeze. She moves across the pavement almost without walking, seemingly imitating one of the many mime artists who used to work this place, dressing up and painting themselves to lure coin from foreign visitors. Yet there is nothing at all fake about this woman. Against her stark reality, the backdrop of ruined London appears sketched onto the sky.

Lucy-Anne walks towards the woman, climbing over piles of twisted steel and shattered glass. She never looks away, in case the woman vanishes. Stay there, I need to talk to you, she thinks, because behind that idea is the certainty that this woman will tell her the truth.

And Lucy-Anne has lived in a world of lies for so long.

The woman turns to walk away, and Lucy-Anne calls after her. But though she opens her mouth she can issue no noise. Her cry is silent.

Walking along the riverbank, the woman turns and looks back. She is smiling. Its an expression that does not appear at home on her face. Even the intense flash that follows does nothing to illuminate its origins.

Lucy-Anne flinches, squeezing her eyes shut against the explosion. The ground thumps at her feet. Fallen steel groans, as if in sadness at the fresh destruction about to be wrought upon it. And way past the woman, north of Londons heartland and past the false edifices of tower blocks and grand architecture, a ball of flame expands from the new wound in the land.

Firestorm scours along the river, turning water to steam, snatching old bridges from their mountings and ripping them to shreds, shattering any glass remaining in buildings and then scorching the buildings themselves.

The cloud of fire and smoke is expanding, being sucked upward into the horribly familiar mushroom cloud that Lucy-Anne had always believed was a fear from the past.

She reaches for the woman, who seems untouched by the firestorm, unconcerned at the dreadful explosion. But she is already turning away.

No! Lucy-Anne says, and this time her voice works. It is louder than the explosion, and for a moment she believes she can shout the detonation down. But London is falling, and burning, and being flattened to make way for whatever folly might come next.

The woman is walking away. Her clothes flap around her, unconcerned at the sun-hot flames melting the pavement at her feet and turning trees to instant charcoal. Each footstep is a flutterflutterflutter.

Lucy-Anne recognises the noise. She knows she should already be dead. The fallen ruin of the London Eyeten thousand tons of steel and glassis picked up and melted by the explosion, and the only sound of its demise is the symphony of countless wings.

Before the final blink of Lucy-Annes dream, the woman glances back over her shoulder one more time. She looks like unfinished business.

The whisper of wings woke her, and Lucy-Anne tried to hear a message in the sound. But that was not her gift.

Rook was kneeling beside her. He looked concerned, and as she opened her eyes, the expression fell from his face, replaced with the customary casual smile. For a moment she thought she might have seen past his mask.

Rooks fluttered through the air behind him, and one large bird was perched on his shoulder, staring at her with dark, lifeless eyes.

Im fine, Lucy-Anne said, sitting up and looking around. Memory rushed in, drowning the dream and replacing it with a stranger reality. But just for a moment a dreg of the dream remainedthe fire, the nuclear explosion, the strange womans enigmatic smileand she shivered. Not everything I dream comes true, she thought, but she could not be certain of that. Time had yet to tell.

Rook had brought her to St. Pauls Cathedral, and they had spent the night high in the dome, in a place called the Whispering Gallery. She wanted to ask why he had chosen somewhere so exposed and well-known, especially after the confrontation with the Choppers that had left so many dead. But then she had heard the effects the birds fluttering wings had in the Gallery, and she knew. There was no silence here. Even with the birds roosting, the whole dome whispered to the sound of their wings. When he slept, Rook needed that.

I dont like the silence, he told her, as if reading her thoughts.

Why not? Lucy-Anne asked. Rooks face dropped a little, and he turned away.

Its dawn. Time to hunt.

Hunt?

You chose to come with me, so you should see what it is I do.

I came with you because you said you could help find my brother Andrew.

I can, Rook said. And I will. But come on. He led the way down out of the Whispering Gallery, and Lucy-Anne followed.

She hoped the others were okay. Shed watched Jack, Sparky, and Jenna fleeing the street, leaving burning helicopters, blazing buildings, and bodies behind. Leaving also Jacks father, Reaper, the leader of the Superiors, and Miller, one of the senior Choppers. Shed felt sad watching them go because she and Jack had been closestill were, she hoped. And Sparky and Jenna were her friends. But something had changed in Lucy-Anne the moment theyd entered the Toxic City. Discovering that her parents were dead had cemented that change, and as shed fled from the hotel where she had discovered that fact, the city had seemed to open up around her. Running, crying, she had felt part of the city, not apart from it.

Your friends havent been caught, Rook said. They were walking through St. Pauls itself now, the huge cathedral eerily quiet but for their footsteps and the flutter of rooks wings.

How do you know?

Rook did not need to answer. Two birds left his shoulders, three more landed there, spreading their huge wings to balance and breaking the silence with their cries.

He communes with the birds, Lucy-Anne thought. The idea was crazy, yet she accepted it completely. There was so much crazy stuff going on, including within her.

Those dreams shed had. Dogs attacking, and then the pack of dogs had assaulted them in the tunnels into London. Her family buried, and then shed learned that her parents were dead, and likely buried in one of Londons massive mass graves. And Rook and the birds. She had dreamt of them as well, and now here they were.

We need to go north, she said as they emerged onto the cathedrals wide steps. Your brother is alive north of here, the man whod confirmed that her parents were dead had told her. The street before them was silent and still. Nothing moved.

And we will, Rook said. He was a small, slight boy, with a dark mop of hair and almost-feminine features. But Lucy-Anne had seen him use his birds to kill.

Andrew is all I have left, she whispered.

No he isnt. Rook shook his head, reaching out to touch her hand. Was that affection? Ownership? She didnt know, and she flinched away. Hed said he could help her, but that didnt mean she owed him anything. Not yet.

Rook laughed softly. Come on. East of here, there are four of them. Ill show you what I can do.

Four of what? He started down the steps at a jog, without answering. Rook? Show me what? Still he didnt answer.